


(Mis)Adventures in Babysitting

by FireSoul



Series: FireSoul's Tumblr Prompts! [8]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Babysitting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 16:13:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15952931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: When Laurel Lance of Earth Two decided to stay on Earth One, the dimension where she had found herself with a second chance at a good life, she wasn't exactly sure what it would entail. However, she never quite imagined running around Central City looking for a runaway six-year-old.





	(Mis)Adventures in Babysitting

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks misscrazyfangirl321 for the prompt!

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Laurel calls through her apartment as she makes her way to the door, in nowhere near as much of a hurry as whoever is banging their fist against the other side. “Hold your horses.”

Frankly she’s not even sure why she’s answering the door. It should be a crime to knock this harshly on a random person’s door this early in the morning, and it has to be a random person because any person whom Laurel actually knows would just knock once before letting themselves in, if they bother knocking at all.

She never had this problem on Earth 2, not since she was a kid anyway. Once she got her powers she made it clear who she was and what happened to people her bothered her. But, she’s changed a lot since then, and she’s doing her best to turn over a better leaf here on Earth 1.

Even if that does mean dealing with some sad middle-aged man selling calendars before noon.

She swings the door open with the full intent of sending away whoever she’s greeted with but, as she’s come to learn is the case with most plans, it doesn’t happen and instead Lisa Snart marches past her and into the apartment.

“I lost Rory!” The other woman exclaims before Laurel can even ask what she’s doing here, and at the confession her mind begins reeling.

“You what?” She demands, trying her best to stay calm as she shuts her door and turns to take in the sight of Lisa, wanting to confirm that this is all a joke.

Lisa’s a decent actress, and has enough of a wild child streak left in her to still pull off some pretty high level pranks, but she isn’t cruel. Much as Laurel wants to reopen her door and find Sara and Leonard’s six-year-old peering around the corner and giggling with mischief she knows she won’t find that sight, it’s written all over Lisa’s frazzled demeanor.

“How?” She demands, “And why did you come all the way here instead of calling?”

“I don’t know!” Lisa panics, still pacing circles around the living room. She pauses briefly at the side of the couch so that she can grab a pillow and clutch it to her chest. “We ate breakfast and then I turned on the TV for her so I could take a shower, then I got out of the shower and I got dressed, but when I went back into the living room she wasn’t there. I called her name a few times, checked out in the hall, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. When I got back from the hall I realized my window was open and so I ran outside, I ran around the block, I checked the dumpster in the ally, I-”

She’s rambling at this point, no longer breathing between her words, and so Laurel marches over and puts her hands firmly on her friend’s shoulders.

“Lisa, Lisa.” She says, waiting for the other woman to stop. When she does she begins to finally take in the breath that she needs. “Calm down and think, where would she go?”

“I thought, I thought she might come here.”

“Well she didn’t,” Laurel assures her friend, reclaiming her hands and finally beginning to process the gravity of this situation. “Why didn’t you just call?”

“I was already halfway around the block,” Lisa says through her continuous pants for breath. “My phone’s still on my bathroom sink.”

Laurel huffs, her hands on her waist as she begins to pace herself, trying to remain rational.

“Ok, let’s just call the police and-”

“No!” Lisa quickly, loudly, objects. Laurel just stares at her for a few second, disbelieving gaze fixed on the feral desperation in the other woman’s eyes.

“No cops,” she says in a voice that is almost begging. “Lenny’s record’s expunged but people don’t forget, plus my record is still out there. If the cops found out he left his kid with me and I lost her-”

“Bad news; got it.” Laurel finishes so that Lisa won’t have to. “Ok, well the park isn’t far, maybe she went to the playground.”

Lisa nods frantically, like she can’t think to do anything else.

“Ok,” Laurel says, “Let’s go.” With that she grabs her keys off the coffee and table and quickly runs to her room for her phone, just in case, and then they’re racing down the building hallways.

* * *

 

The playground, as Laurel partially expected, is a bust. They run all around the park, at first checking every square inch of the playground before moving on to every tree, bush, and large rock that Rory might fit either in or under.

“Did you find her?” Lisa asks as the two of them reconvene at the monkey bars.

“Does it look like I found her?” Laurel exclaims, “Yeah, yeah I totally found her. I’m giving her a piggyback right now.”

“Ok geeze,” Lisa winces with offence, “You don’t have to yell at me.”

“Oh really?” She demands, her voice heightening much like Lisa’s did back in her apartment. “Because you’re the one who lost your niece. All you had to do was keep track of her for a couple of days while Sara and Leonard are with the Legends, and she crawled out your window!”

“What was I supposed to do?” Lisa shouts in retaliation. “Make her sit on the toilet lid while I took a shower?”

“You could’ve locked the window!”  
They continue yelling at each other, making a much bigger scene than they probably should in the middle of the park, until Laurel feels her phone vibrating in her back pocket and pulls it out to see he’s calling her, and then her panic promptly doubles.

“Oh my god, it’s Sara.” She says, turning the phone so Lisa can see Sara’s ID picture.

“What?” She exclaims, “How? Aren’t they still on the Waverider?”

“I don’t know!”

“Well answer it!”

“I-uh...” Laurel splutters for an answer before she ends up pressing her thumb against the _accept_ button and brings the phone immediately to her ear. “Hey Sara...”

“Hey Laurel,” Sara says on the other end, not sounding like she can hear her teeth gritting together in panic as Lisa crowds her, mouthing questions about what the time traveler is saying. “I tried calling Lisa but she hasn’t been answering.”

“Uh yeah, her, her phone died.” She lies, shaking her head cluelessly as Lisa questions her decision with hushed words.

“It died?” Sara asks, “That’s weird, it’s been giving me her voicemail.”

“I don’t, I don’t know. She said it was dead.” Lisa rolls her eyes and Laurel waves her off, she can only handle one stressful conversation at a time. “So, how exactly are you calling me? I thought you were still on the Waverider?”

“Ray’s been working on adapters for our phones,” Sara explains, “Anyway, we’re probably going to be here for another day or two, things got a little out of hand with the first running of the bulls.”

“Oh boy,”

“Yeah…” Sara drawls, “Anyway, I was just calling to check in on Rory, are she and Lisa with you?”

“No!” She answers a little too quickly, which sends Lisa back to her silent protesting. “Err, I mean yes, yes they’re with me but Rory… Rory’s asleep!”

_“What?!”_ Lisa silently demands, looking like she is only one bad lie away from ripping the phone away, though Laurel doubts she could come up with anything better.

“Asleep?” Sara questions, sounding every bit as skeptical as Lisa is probably expecting she would. “Isn’t it the middle of the day for you guys?”

“We uh… we brought her to the park. Yeah, we’ve been here all morning and she just wore herself out running around.” She claims, making a little whirly motion with her finger as she fully commits herself to the lie. Lisa’s given up on getting any answers and is now standing by impatiently, which helps. “Yeah, she made a bunch of little friends and she was practically asleep on her feet when we left the playground. Lisa picked her up to carry her and she was out in a minute. We’re almost at the car.”

“Oh, ok.” Sara says, sounding like she does find the prospect of her daughter wearing herself into exhaustion unlikely, but not totally unbelievable. “I guess I’ll try and call again tonight, bye Laurel.”

“Ok bye, have fun running with the bulls.”

She breathes a sigh of relief as she hangs up, though it doesn’t last long.

“Well?” Lisa asks, practically bouncing on her toes.

“They’re still on the Waverider,” Now it’s Lisa’s turn to sigh in relief. “But she’s going to try and call again tonight.

“Ok, ok good. We’ll find her by tonight. If not, we call the cops.”

She doesn’t sound like she’s exactly thrilled about that plan, and Laurel isn’t either to be honest, but it’s they’re best bet.

“Why don’t we go back to your apartment?” She suggests, hoping to maybe lift Lisa’s hopes. “See if maybe she went back.”

“Yeah, ok.”

With that decided they continue towards the car, not saying anything, at first.

“Thank you,” Lisa eventually says, and so Laurel looks at her curiously. “For not telling Sara I lost her daughter, and for helping me look for her.”

“Of course,” she says, “She’s more or less my niece too, I mean not really but-”

“No really,” Lisa interrupts. “She calls you her aunt, even if Sara and Lenny never told her to. Which is why I’m thanking you, because I know you think you have a lot more at risk here than I do-”

Laurel stops dead in her tracks, holding up a hand to halt Lisa as well.

“Lisa,” she says, cutting off the other woman’s words.

“What?”

She points ahead, as though saying anything will make what’s caught her attention vanish. Just at the edge of the parking lot and getting out of a very familiar car they can see Dinah Lance, accompanied by Rory.

With only a quick glance to each other to confirm they’re seeing the same thing the two women break out into a run, and Laurel notes that Dinah is laughing but she doesn’t care. All she can think about is that Rory is safe.

“Oh thank God!” Lisa exclaims just as they reach the pair and she lifts her, their, niece up into her arms in a crushing hug. “You had us worried sick!”

Laurel smiles as she looks at the little girl from over Lisa’s shoulder to make sure that she isn’t hurt, and then she looks to Dinah who is watching this whole scene in amusement.

Well at least she doesn’t look mad.

“Where did you find her?” She asks through her relieved smile ad Dinah actually snorts, and then inclines her head towards Lisa and Rory.

“Would you like to explain that Aurora?”

Uh oh, the full name only comes out when there’s trouble.

Lisa notices Dinah’s tone and the name as well, so with a confused expression she places Rory on her feet and kneels in front of her, allowing the two of them who have been running around worried all morning to see that the source of their anxieties looks rather ashamed of herself.

“I thought you heard me.” She squeaks, her voice so quiet that Laurel needs to strain to hear it, and it doesn’t help that she’s keeping her chin tucked down.

“Heard you what?” Lisa asks, worry still the most prominent thing in her voice.

“When, when you were in the shower.” Rory explains, “I asked if we could play hide-and-seek when you got, got out, and I thought you heard, heard me. I was hiding under your bed.”

Lisa looks like she can’t decide between being angry, relieved, or embarrassed at that, and Laurel makes a note to later remind her friend that the next time she loses something, especially a child, she should check every inch of her apartment before running two blocks to her place.

“I thought you were playing, but then you left and didn’t come back, so I called grandma.”

“Oh my god,” Lisa exclaims again, “Rory, don’t just assume I heard you if I’m in the shower.”

“But when you yell, yell upstairs at my house and daddy doesn’t, doesn’t answer you, you say to take, take that as a, as a yes.”

Laurel actually laughs out loud at that. She’s seen that happen a few times, where Lisa will be sitting on the couch in her brother’s living room while he’s upstairs and so she’ll just shout any question she has for him. He only answer half the time, if that, and when he does answer it’s hard to tell what he’s saying, but she pretty much always takes it to mean yes.

“That’s… that’s not something I should be doing in front of you, I’m sorry.” She says and before Rory can start full on crying Lisa pulls her back to her chest for another hug, and then stands up fully so that she’s holding her.

“How did you find us?” Laurel asks Dinah, who simply smiles.

“We were waiting in Lisa’s apartment for her to come back, I called Joe West to tell him to pass along the message about what happened if she went to the police. We were playing checkers when Sara called me to ask if I had spoken to you girls, she said something about Lisa’s phone being dead but the voicemail working and that you were at the park. I told her I was actually on my way out to meet you.”

Laurel smiles at that, of all people Dinah Lance was probably the most against her when she decided to remain on this Earth permanently, not that she blames the older woman. To hear that she covered for them, it’s a testament to how far they’ve come.

“Wait,” Lisa suddenly says, directing a very confused look towards the little girl in her arms. “Why was my window open?”

“Oh, there was a fly so I opened it so he could go back to his friends.”

That does it. That’s the one that finally gets Lisa laughing. Of course that’s the reason the window was open.

Since they’re at the park Rory starts begging to go on the playground, and so they let her, but not before warning her that her parents WILL be hearing about this little stunt she’s pulled. She starts to beg them not to tell, of course, but Lisa stands firm that they’re telling and if she wants to play she had better go. So it’s with slightly broken spirits that the little girl heads off to what she must be convinced is her last afternoon of fun for a while.

“You know,” Dinah drawls as soon as her granddaughter is safely out of earshot. “It isn’t like she’s old enough to be grounded or anything, if you send her to bed early tonight there really isn’t a point in Sara and Leonard knowing.”

“You know I was thinking no desert,” Lisa says, raising an admiring eyebrow at Dinah. “But I kind of like that better.”

Laurel just smirks at the agreement, “We’re still gonna let her think we’re telling them, right?”

“Absolutely,” Dinah quickly agrees.

“We can’t let her think she’s getting off that easy.” Lisa puts in, and Laurel just smirks in agreement.


End file.
